Amit Shah to contest Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat

BJP president Amit Shah is set to make his debut as a member of Parliament with the BJP parliamentary board on Wednesday announcing that he will contest the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections from Gujarat.

Union minister Smriti Irani will also contest the Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat from where she is already an MP and her term ends on August 18.

Shah at present is an MLA from Gujarat, where BJP has a government.

Their names were announced by senior party leader J P Nadda after the meeting of the party panel.

The BJP has not yet named a third candidate for the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections. The party could field one, sources have said, hoping to stop Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, from returning to the upper house of Parliament to cause the rival party severe embarrassment ahead of assembly elections to be held later this year.

Nadda said local leaders were still holding discussions on that.

He also announced that Sampatia Uike, a tribal leader from the Mahakoshal region would be the BJP's candidate for the single Rajya Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh for which by-elections will be held.

The BJP is confident of winning the seat, vacated by the death of party leader and union minister Anil Madhav Dave.